Skills for Academic Success

Register by clicking on the title of the course. Please note that parallel sessions are running for the first six weeks. You can book on one or the other but not both (apart from 8 February)

Lent Term 2018

Thursday 25 January, 6-7pm How to Pitch Your Research[1]Workshop run by Dr Stefanie Reichelt, Cancer Research UK Institute (Fellow)
Gatsby Room
No one seems to listen? Do you find it hard to catch your audience’s attention? Do you find it difficult to convince your supervisor? Maybe you need new ways to present? Learn 'How to pitch your big idea'. We will practice how you introduce yourself and how to make an elevator pitch. Each participant will be given the opportunity to present a project idea followed by an interactive fun practice session.

OR

Starting your Dissertation or Project in the Sciences[2]Workshop run by Laura Jeffrey, Wolfson College Lee Library, Information Skills Librarian
Old Combination Room
This session is aimed at students who have been used to working off a reading list and now need to search for resources themselves. It will include search techniques, highlight relevant search tools, go beyond books and journal articles, discuss visiting other libraries, and think about managing the information that you find.

Thursday 1 February, 6-7pm. Meta-Analysis[3]Workshop run by Dr Richard Meiser-Stedman (CRA)
Roger Needham Room
Meta-analysis is a tool for quantitatively summarising different datasets. It can be a very powerful tool and is frequently used to combine effect sizes from different randomised clinical trials. It can also be used to pool findings from more or less any statistic typically used in the medical or social sciences, e.g. odds ratios, correlation coefficients. In this session Richard will provide an overview of what meta-analysis is, the core statistical concepts involved, the main steps in conducting a meta-analysis and the mistakes one can easily make. Richard is a research clinical psychologist and not a statistician, so will be using a realist/practitioner perspective!

OR

Starting your dissertation or project in the Arts or Social Sciences[4]
Workshop run by Laura Jeffrey
Gatsby Room
This session is aimed at students who have been used to working off a reading list and now need to search for resources themselves. It will include search techniques, highlight relevant search tools, go beyond books and journal articles, discuss visiting other libraries, and think about managing the information that you find.

Thursday 8 FebruaryHow to Interpret Experimental Results[5]Workshop run by Dr Noa Zilberman (Fellow)
Roger Needham Room 7-8pm (please note later time).
Experimental results are often deceiving, and can lead researchers to inaccurate (and sometimes even false) conclusions. This session will explore different aspects in understanding experimental results and provide basic skills to interpret them. Some of the aspects covered in this session include understanding the setup and inputs to an experiment, interpreting graph results, the interplay between goals and results, and what the presentation of results does not reveal.

and/or

Critical Reading and Evaluating Sources for your Dissertation or Project[6]
Workshop run by Laura Jeffrey
Gatsby Room 6-7pm
When searching for books and articles it can be difficult to know which are most relevant or of the highest quality. This hands-on session will introduce to you to tips for effective and critical reading, strategies for evaluating content and consider why cognitive bias matters.

Thursday 15 February, 6-7pm Structuring a Concise Logical Argument: how to write a science essay[7]Workshop run byDr Linda King (Director of Studies for Natural Sciences)
Roger Needham Room
An essay is a piece of writing composed in response to a scientific question, requiring evidence for and against a viewpoint. The art of essay writing is to extract sufficient evidence to justify your viewpoint, without needing to regurgitate everything you know about the subject. This session will discuss how to format a clear and unambiguous response, relying on formulation of concepts rather than facts.

OR

Digging for Hidden Treasure: finding and using archival resources[8]
Workshop run by Laura Jeffrey and Frieda Midgley, Wolfson College Archivist
Gatsby Room
This is an overview for those new to using historic collections in their studies and research. It will highlight search tools, online collections and resources, as well how to use physical archives and what you need to know when visiting them.

Thursday 22 February, 6:30-7:30pm (note later time)Getting Published: understanding the publication pipeline[9]Workshop run by Dr Frank Tietze (Fellow)
Roger Needham RoomFrank will provide an introduction to the publishing journey all the way from doing the actual research to the final publication of a journal article. We will discuss the role of working and conference papers along this process. He shall then present insights from three quite different processes he has experienced himself when trying to get a paper published.

OR

Writing up your project: copyright, plagiarism and referencing[10]
Workshop run by Laura Jeffrey
Old Combination RoomThis session will highlight important elements that you need to consider when writing up. They centre around the need to give credit to others and will focus on how to avoid plagiarism, including the use of reference management software, the basics of copyright for material that you might want to include in your dissertation or project, and pointers to freely available research (Open Access) and images. Please note that the guidance in this session does not constitute legal advice.

Thursday 1 MarchDeveloping your online footprint for researchers[11]
Workshop run by Laura Jeffrey
Gatsby Room 6-7pm
This session is aimed at researchers who are looking to develop a presence for their research on the web. It will explore using social media to promote your work, but also as a research tool, help you build a strong web profile and consider ways of maximising the impact and visibility of your research by making it Open Access.

Revision and exam skills[13] (for Wolfson students only)
Workshop run by Mr Richard Berengarten, Study Skills Tutor
Gatsby room 6-7:30pm (please note longer running time).
This seminar will help you to map out your revision in a practical and effective way, without overloading. The steps outlined will take you through the simple procedures involved in setting up and activating your own plan. This is not a lecture but a working session. You will have the chance to set up your own timetable with a bit of outside guidance and support. It will be useful if you can bring along some exam papers from a previous year. The seminar concludes by exploring exam skills, especially with regard to: time-management, generating ideas, relevance and conciseness, the structuring and planning of answers, and checking.

OR

Introduction to R[14]Workshop run by Dr Sergio Martinez Cuesta (CRA)
Roger Needham Room,6-7pm
This course provides a short beginners introduction to the R programming language and software environment for statistical computing and graphics. Sergio will demonstrate basic examples on how to input, explore, plot and output data in R. Everybody is welcome, if you would like to follow along with your laptop, please bring R and RStudio downloaded[15] and installed before the session.